No matter what Obama or Romney do, it appears that energy supply and demand in North America are coming closer in balance. The maximum demand and minimum production in North America occurred in 2005. Ever since then demand has been going down (well before the recession) and supply has been going up as new drilling technologies are taking hold. Thus we have a trend that started in the Bush administration and continued through the Obama administration, despite two very different energy policies. See
http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/index.cfm#fnote1 ,
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus1&f=a ,
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9010us2m.htm , and
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/us-usa-api-monthly-idUSBRE87G0UQ20120817 . If current trends continue in line with both parties' "all of the above" strategy, there is a possibility we could see overall North American energy supply and demand come into balance by 2020. However, this won't happen without the new mileage standards promoted by the Obama administration, and which are not supported by Romney. Romney's plan also assumes about 1 million barrels a day coming from biofuels, even though he is not a big proponent of them and they still require huge government subsidies.
Contrary to what Mr. Neider asserts, government subsidies for coal and natural gas electricity production amount to only 64 cents per MWH while solar is $765.64 per MWH and wind is $56.29 per MWH (see
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1201253705 , this link should get around the Wall Street Journal paywall for the next few days). The $4 billion per year federal subsidies the oil industry as a whole gets is derived mainly from the same capital depreciation tax laws that are available to any business. It's a tiny amount in an industry that contributes tax revenues of tens of billions a year. Solar, on the other hand, just creates black holes like Solyndra that swallow hundreds of millions without a trace (though it appears this loss will be available as tax credits to Solyndra's investors, some of whom are major Obama contributors, see
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=2002391853 ).
As for carbon emissions, the actual truth is that today the US is already close to meeting the Kyoto standards (basically reducing CO2 emissions to 1990 levels). US energy related CO2 emissions (including transportation and electricity production) are the lowest since 1992 (see
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7350 ). While warmer weather played a part, as well as lower gasoline demand due to higher prices (supply and demand again), most of it has come from moving away from coal electricity production to cheaper natural gas (again driven by supply and demand). A byproduct of this is lower CO2 emissions since natural gas produces much less CO2 per MWH than coal. Who knew fracking would be the single most effective means of reducing CO2 in the last 20 years?
